On thing on each week's must-do list requires my reading Newsweek magazine cover to cover. The current issue contains informative articles. One article caused me to stop and think things over. It was not one of the several pieces dealing with recent deaths: Gerald R. Ford, "Ford's Long Shadow"; nor Saddam Hussein, "Death of a Tyrant"; nor James Brown, "James Brown, 1933-2006. I paused to mull over the regularly featured "My Turn."
"My Turn" is a column inviting anyone to submit well-written essays with a topic of their choosing. A lady from Bend, Oregon penned "The Importance of Being Neighborly." She spoke of the friendship she formed with a neighbor after getting to know him even though "... he looked intimidating, with his full grizzled beard and scraggly hair, his seedy t-shirt, tattered flannel shirt and ragged jeans." He turned out to be good-natured and very helpful to her, something she discovered others thought of him, too. His unexpected death came as a shock to them and her young daughter said, "...it wasn't fair that we didn't get a chance to say good-bye."
This tale made me think of mistaken first impressions I've gotten when first meeting people. Fancy cars, big houses and flashy jewelry, I've learned, often indicate large debt with little positive worth. I suspect lots of worry and hand-wringing occurs each month when their bills arrive. I served on a jury that found guilty a man who bilked money from gullible investors. More than once in testimony, victims talked of the big car he drove and the large diamond ring he wore. They trusted him and his sure-fire money deals because he looked personally successful. His "bling" proved to be a set of decoys enticing this flock into his pond where he harvested without limit. His facade was rented!
I've known some pretty crusty coots who proved themselves to be great people. Old cliches or maxims like "beauty is only skin deep," "you can't judge a book by its cover," or "a diamond in the rough" describe some of them very well.
